For those of you that use the Oracle DB in your portal stack (or for pretty much anything), you know what an atrocity Oracle’s SQL*Plus is (it’s more dated than Plumtree / ALUI!). I’ve looked on and off over the years for a simple Oracle client that works as well as Microsoft’s SQL Server Management Studio, and I want to thank Hani Atalla for turning me on to this one: Benthic Software’s Golden. It’s hyper-simple to use, and even has all the “creature comforts” like being able to copy a result set into an Excel Spreadsheet (try doing THAT with SQL*Plus!). It does require Oracle’s Instant Client to work, but even I (as a non-Oracle DBA) was able to install both in a matter of minutes.

If you’ve sweated through SQL*Plus sessions for way too long, definitely check this tool out – it’s cheap, at only $40. If you’ve got a better tool for quick and easy Oracle DB queries, I’d love to hear about it in the comments!